Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Peter Abelard and His Contemporaries 105
that they can be opposite to one another means that they can be contradictories
and contraries to one another, and suggests that they likewise can stand in the
other relations of the square of opposition, and so can be sub-alternates and subcontraries.
This in turn suggests that they can stand in inferential relations to
each other, and accordingly the above puzzle about how inferential relations hold
independently of the understandings of the mind, and the things the propositions
are about, is able to be addressed through this theory of dicta.
So the dicta of propositions — what they say — cause their truth, falsity, etc.
They are also themselves able to be described as true, false, etc. Above and
beyond these features is another already mentioned. The dictum, aswhatissaid
by the proposition, is its propositional content, and as such subject to the various
propositional attitudes under which it can be expressed: it can be expressed with
assertive force, interrogative force, imperative force, and so on. 43
We have, therefore, a variety of features associated with the dictum, and the
question is, then, what sort of item actually possesses them. Abelard leaves us
with no clear response to this question, and indeed seems to struggle with it
himself. On the other hand, it is easy to find modern comparisons which answer
to these descriptions — understanding, of course, that the key terms involved are
extensively nuanced, and cannot easily be transferred to a prior century.
(i) What we call a state of affairs can be construed as possessing these features.
We can say that true, possible, necessary states of affairs are ones that do, can
and must obtain, and that false states of affairs are those possible ones that do not
obtain. Two such states can be taken manifesting oppositeness to one another,
and standing in a relation of contrariety or contradictoriness. We can speak of
one state of affairs as implying another. So states of affairs can be, like dicta,
described as true, false, etc. They can also be construed as causing these features
in propositions — as making a proposition true, false, possible, necessary, opposite
to another proposition or such as to imply it. Since states of affairs are closely
associated with how the world is in some respect, it is intuitive to think of them as
actually causing propositions to be true, false, etc. Finally, a state of affairs can
be construed as being what is said by a proposition, that is, its content. As such it
may be regarded as subject to expression via the various propositional attitudes.
One can assert a state of affairs, question it, order it to be brought about, and so
on.
(ii) Parallel construals can be attempted for the notion of a fact. Facts can be
characterized as true, possible and necessary, and then false ones characterized as
those possible ones which do not hold. 44 Facts can be mutually exclusive, and
one fact can imply another. Facts can be construed as causing propositions to
be true, false, possible, and necessary, mutually exclusive and implicative of other
propositions. And they can be construed as propositional contents subject to
assertive, interrogative, imperative, precative and optative force.
43 The fact that the dictum must be thought of as susceptible to all of the propositional attitudes,
not just the assertive one, is emphasized in [Marenbon, 2004, p. 66].
44 This notion of a false fact would clearly be a departure from the received notion of a fact.